Election fiasco enrages Puerto Ricans
Ballot supply runs out at many polling places
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico on Sunday was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots as officials called on the president of the U.S. territory’s elections commission to resign.
The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early afternoon are expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said.
“I have never seen on American soil something like what just has been done here in Puerto Rico. It’s an embarrassment to our government and our people,” said Pedro Pierluisi, who is running against Gov. Wanda Vázquez for the nomination of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party.
Meanwhile, Vázquez called the situation “a disaster” and demanded the resignation of the president of the elections commission.
“They made the people of Puerto Rico, not the candidates, believe that they were prepared,” she said. “Today the opposite was evident. They lied.”
The president of her party, Thomas Rivera Schatz and the president of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party held a joint press conference and said they agreed that the remaining primaries should be held Aug. 16, a move Vázquez said she supports.
Other politicians argued that the entire primary should be scrapped and held at another date.
To further complicate things, Edgardo Román, president of the Bar Association of Puerto Rico, said it’s unclear what alternatives are legally viable because the island’s electoral law is unclear.
“It doesn’t contemplate this scenario,” he said.
Hundreds of frustrated voters, who wore the required face masks and braved a spike in COVID-19 cases, were turned away from centers across Puerto Rico as officials told them that no ballots were available.
The situation infuriated voters and politicians of all stripes as they blamed Puerto Rico’s elections commission and demanded an explanation.
One of the most closely watched races on Sunday is that of the pro-statehood Progressive New
Party, which pits two candidates who served as replacement governors following last year’s political turmoil. Vázquez faces Pierluisi, who represented Puerto Rico in Congress from 2009 to 2017.
Pierluisi briefly served as governor after Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned in August 2019 following widespread street protests over a profanity-laced chat that was leaked and government corruption. But Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court ruled that Vázquez, then the justice secretary, was constitutionally next in line because there was no secretary of state.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, which supports Puerto Rico’s current political status as a U.S. territory, is holding a primary for the first time in its 82year history.